Legendary Child Star Shirley Temple Passes Away

Her representatives confirmed the news this morning.

Shirley Temple's representatives confirmed her death this morning — from natural causes at her home in California, "surrounded by her family and caregivers." She began her career in 1930's Hollywood as a 3-year-old, and in her prime proved to be more of a box office draw than actors like Clark Gable and Bing Crosby. Which, given how wonderful performances like "Good Ship Lollipop" are, from the 1934 film Bright Eyes, seems reasonable.

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Temple's curls and "unrelenting cheeriness" are also credited with saving the fortunes of 20th Century Fox and helping "yank America from the Great Depression," The Hollywood Reporter writes. President Franklin Roosevelt famously said, "as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right."

Following her retirement from acting aged 22, Temple married (twice) and raised a family. In 1967 she unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican; she served as the U.S. Ambassador to both Ghana and Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s respectively. She's also credited as one of the first public figures to discuss her breast cancer, following a mastectomy she underwent in 1972. Temple is survived by three children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, as well as her groundbreaking big screen legacy.